Car sales rule upsets widow

When Sue Palmer found herself suddenly widowed last month, she decided to replace the two vehicles registered in her husband’s name with one more suitable for her own use.

She turned in Herbert Palmer’s leased Ford Taurus to the dealership, and she found a buyer for his pickup truck with an ad on Craigslist. Then, she had to do something that surprised and outraged her.

Sue Palmer with photo of her late husband, Herbert

She had to hand over copies of her husband’s death certificate to the auto dealership and to the buyer of the truck, a Broadalbin man she describes as a total stranger.

“He seemed like a very nice person, but what do I know,” she said. “He drove up in a Mercedes. He gave me cash.”

Palmer was alarmed by the amount of personal information she found recorded on her husband’s the death certificate for all to see. There was his Social Security number, her maiden name and his mother’s maiden name. His dates of military service are there, as well as where he worked before he retired.

Perhaps most disturbingly, the bottom of the document outlined the medical details of his death, which was due to natural causes.

The more she thought about it afterward, the more it bothered her.

“Strangers don’t need to know this stuff,” she told me with an exasperation that I now share. “My husband would have been upset. He was a very private person.”

Sue Palmer also sees much irony in a system that requires her to share so much personal information, now that her husband is deceased, when laws such as HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) imposed such extreme safeguards on that information when he was alive.

“With so much concern over HIPAA laws, my husband is protected in life but upon his death, his medical information is out there for so many eyes to see and assume his identity, if so desired,” she said.

Palmer doesn’t dispute the need for official evidence to prove that the owner of the vehicle no longer has a valid claim on it and that she has the authority to sell it.

What she quite reasonably does dispute is the need to disclose so much irrelevant personal information in a way that places no limits on who might see it or how they might use it.

From my perspective, the imposition of this requirement by the Department of Motor Vehicles, an agency that I sometimes consider overzealous in restricting information that ought to be public in other contexts, doubles the irony.

It also seems contradictory. Here is what the DMV website says about the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act:

“Note: The DMV does not release photographs, Social Security Numbers, telephone numbers, medical information or disability information. This information is not available in NYS, even to those persons who request the information and have a permissible use.”

So, why should a motorist have to disclose such information as a condition of selling a car?

Two county clerks who oversee local motor vehicle offices that process and record changes in auto ownership say they have no interest in handling or retaining the personal information contained on a death certificate.

“I think that information is private. It should be kept private,” said Rensselaer County Clerk Frank Merola. “There should be some other way to verify that the person is no longer alive. It just seems like it’s a wealth of information that should be kept tightly secured.”

The need for some sort of proof is clear each time someone visits DMV and tries to pull a fast one, Schenectady County Clerk John Woodward noted.

“I have had husbands come in and tell me the wife is dead, and then we find out these people are in the middle of a divorce,” he said.

But like Merola, Woodward said he doesn’t need to keep the certificate copy, once an employee has seen it. And Merola finds it intrusive just to see the document containing detailed information about a cause of death.

“It’s not something I want to see. It’s not something I need to see,” he said.

In the course of researching this issue, I think I may have found a straightforward way to address Palmer’s concerns without compromising the ability of buyers and motor vehicle authorities to confirm that a vehicle did belong to a motorist who is, in fact, deceased.

The answer came with help from Troy Registrar Cydne Brearton, who said that she can issue an alternative to a death certificate copy. It is called a “certification of death.”

The certification includes the name, date of death, place of death (municipality and county), filing date, register number and a district number for the city. That’s all. She affixes a raised seal and signs it.

“It’s a legal document and I don’t see any reason it should not be accepted,” Brearton said. “If someone came in and asked us, we would suggest that they use that.”

“I would accept it,” Woodward said. “I am just looking for proof that the death has occurred.”

Merola, too, said he would welcome a less-detailed document, but he wasn’t aware that such documents were available or permissible.

The problem, of course, is that the state Department of Motor Vehicles forms all explicitly direct a surviving spouse to provide a copy of a “death certificate” for transfer of a motor vehicle.

This appears in capital letters on the DMV’s Affidavit for Transfer of Motor Vehicles: “A COPY OF THE DEATH CERTIFICATE MUST BE PROVIDED.”

The DMV’s instructions for Registration/Transfer of ownership when the vehicle owner is deceased also include a “copy of the death certificate” on a checklist of documentation to be brought to the motor vehicles office.

“I did what I was told to do,” Palmer said.

The funeral home that handled arrangements for Herbert Palmer gave her two certified copies of the death certificate and some regular copies, which were identical except for the lack of official certification.

She gave one of the photocopies to the truck buyer. Presumably, he took the certificate copy to a motor vehicles office, where it was either attached to a file or returned to him.

I can only hope he will be trustworthy with this sensitive document.

“I had no choice but to provide this document to individuals in order to settle my husband’s estate,” she said. “This document is a huge security issue not just for me, but for anyone out there who finds themself in the same situation.”

9 Responses

I did not see it mentioned in the article, but there is an alternative to giving the truck buyer a copy of the death certificate. She could have taken the death certificate to DMV and had the truck retitled in just her name. I believe there is a fee for this, but then only DMV has to see the death certificate. Once it was entirely in her name, she could have then sold it without having to divulge the sensitive information on the death certificate to a total stranger.

While some may look at this being Herbert’s personal information, in actuality it is public information about Herbert. Even though NY State won’t release this information for quite a while it is nontheless public. As far as a security issue, there isn’t any. The funeral home, by law must notify the Social Security Administration of Herbert’s death, which in turn stops the use of his social security number for any loans, credit cards, etc. Every bank, financial institute, insurance company subscribes to the SSDI (Social Security Death Index), plus in a few days you, me and anyone with internet access will be able to get Herbert’s social security number, birth date, death date, last residence for free with a few strokes on the keyboard.
With the exception of the cause of death all the other information is availble, either online or physical sources. If this is shocking for some, they should try typing their name into Google, Yahoo or Bing. Then type in their phone number. Then try their address.

When my husband passed away I did what Scott (comment #1)spoke about. I went to DMV in Albany and changed the title and registration into my name. They looked at the death certificate and then handed it back to me. I then was able to sign over the trucks to a dealer myself.

Thank you Scott, for alerting us that there appears to be a rational alternative solution in place. I would hope whatever fee is required is a reasonable, and affordable one. The process you suggest seems fairly simple, straightforward and reasonable.

I would also like to presume that the details of this solution are readily available at all NYS-DMV offices through personnel who are well versed enough to clearly explain it.

What amazes me is that even though several of us readers imedidately thought of having the title transfered to the survivor before selling, neither county clerk, nor the registrar from Troy nor the “Advocate” thought of this. Since the change in advocates, I really think the name should be changed from the Advocate to the “Half-Hearted Explainer”

@ Bill: Yes, transferring the title to one’s self is an option for the surviving spouse. It is not, however, an option that is even mentioned on any of the DMV forms or DMV website instructions that were available to Sue Palmer or to me as I did my research. It’s a way around the problem, but it is not a solution.
Also, since Mrs. Palmer’s part of the transactions did not involve or require a visit to the DMV, there was no opportunity for anyone there to have pointed this out to her. In any case, her own particular schedule would have made transferring the title to herself and then making the sale impractical.
The fee for making the transfer of title would have been approximately $50, I believe. Again, it is an option, but not a solution for the problem. The DMV forms all explicitly instruct the surviving spouse to provide a copy of the death certificate.

“Since the change in advocates, I really think the name should be changed from the Advocate to the “Half-Hearted Explainer”

These story seem to be poorly researched and really only give one side of a story. The Advocate web blog should read, “Complain here and we’ll write a story about it. Facts or research not necessary.”

The reality is Cathy Woodruff trys to say it is DMV’s fault and essentially they are mean for asking for such information. Cathy would be the same person who would write an article about this widow being taken advantage of because DMV allowed someone to take ownership of her deceased husband’s car without proof of anything.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You need documents to legal support a legal transfer of property. In this case the car is that property.

Also, as pointed out by #2 @ rottenralf, death certificates provide information that is public information about the deceased. So the issue of personal information security, is not an issue at all. Again, poor researched or bad reporting of all the facts. Either way it brings us right back to the “Half-Hearted Explainer.

When I worked in the offline office at a local phone company we also would request death certificates when someone named on the account passed away and the account needed to be changed. There isn’t much on a death certificate that the public can’t find out if they really wanted to.